Podcasting

I have had my mp3 player for over a year now...more like two, actually...but I never got involved in the world of podcasting until a couple of weeks ago, when I was Jonesin' for CarTalk at a non CarTalk time. "I wonder if they have a podcast?" I thought, and headed over to the NPR website. They did. I downloaded a client to deal with my non-Apple mp3 player, and I was good to go.

Turns out that one of my other favorite radio shows, This American Life, also has a podcast. I had only heard the show a couple times before discovering this, but it's amazing -- really great storytelling, really great themes for shows. I may have developed a huge crush on the host, Ira Glass. This is him:
Turns out he's a big nerd. Just as I suspected. Delightful!

I've also added Fresh Air, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and Whadya Know? to the list. Work is way more fun, now.

Putting All My Eggs Into One Basket

Through lack of choice, I have, in the area of friendship, performed the equivalent of putting all my eggs into one basket. Now, my good friend here is fantastic and I'm so glad I met her...but she recently started "dating" a guy who is a friend of ours (I use the word friend loosely, as we have only recently brought him into the fold), and this presents some unfortunate emotional consequences for me.

Now, since they are "dating," I know that is none of my business (except in the supportive "How'd it go? Tell me every detail," way). What I mean is, of course dating involves only two people, and that's totally cool. However, last weekend on their date they ended up with a group of his friends in Richmond, one of whom I've met before, and so it ended up being a big group go-out. Of course, this all happened as the evening unfolded, but the fact that it wasn't in fact the two of them and was actually a group activity made me feel lonely and kind of left out.

The problem here is the intellectual vs. the emotional. Intellectually, I think it's great, and I'm happy for her (not that they're remotely serious, but it's fun to have fun and meet new people), but on the emotional level, I feel kind of sad that my pretty-much-only friend here is having these social opportunities that don't include me. I'm trying to be cool about it, but when I'm sitting at home alone on Saturday night, twiddling my thumbs, or going to a movie by myself (which I enjoy but still), I feel like kind of a sad and pathetic individual.

The other problem, and one that I've talked about with her before, is that as much as long distance is pretty much ok with me on a day to day basis, it's hard to be attached and not have the other half of my attachment here. Sometimes it sucks to watch people be all happy and dating and meeting people, and feeling sad that the Affianced is elsewhere. It's all temporary, and we'll be in the same location and probably sick of each other before you know it, but it's sad right now. I wish I had someone to take me out.

He and I were talking recently, and I told him that I wanted to go on more dates. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Well," I told him, "I guess a date could me a couple things. It could be where we dress up nicely and go out. Or it could be when one of us plans the evening without the others input for a bit of a surprise." Not that we don't, you know, go out when we're together, but I think the thing is, as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes I do want to be treated like a girl. Not often. But sometimes. Generally speaking, I love the egalitarian way we handle things, and we're so "well-suited," as Ann would put it, that we rarely disagree about what to do. But it would be nice, sometime, if he (or I, because I can take responsibility, too), makes a plan and takes charge of the evening, and it isn't so...equal. Just to keep things interesting.

Thusly have I pondered on this fine evening. And now, in order to get up super early to get to the gym before the random assignment I must complete for work at 9:00 tomorrow morning, I must head in the direction of the bed.

Tomorrow is our chili cook-off, for which I have found a recipe for pumpkin-turkey chili. I am counting on creativity points. Wish me luck!

Mail!

One of my favorite things in the world is mail. Any kind of mail. Although bills aren't as fun as other kinds, nothing makes me heart go pitter-pat quite like the sight of an envelope in my mailbox. It's a magical thing.

I also now have a penpal. She is the Affianced's sister. She teasingly wrote and asked me to be her penpal, a request I accepted with full gusto, and today I got a letter. I miss the old days, when I had, like, 6 penpals at a time, and this is equally exciting. I also got a tax form, and a refund check from my loan. All in all, a good day.

But what if it SNOWS?????!!!

Right now, I should be chipping into the exorbitant amount of reading that I need to accomplish in the next week, and I will, soon, when I finish this entry. I promise.

Yesterday marked the culmination of perhaps the most impressive thing I have ever done, short of completing my undergrad thesis, which, actually, wasn't all that significant in retrospect. Yesterday, the Center for Gifted Education's 13th Annual Focusing on the Future conference was held. This conference was planned, in large part, by me.

On Thursday, the phone calls started:

"Have you rescheduled?"
"I'm sure you've heard that bad weather is possible."
"It might snow. We're coming from three hours away."

Of course, this possibility had been considered months before. In fact, three years ago, the conference was canceled because of snow, so we had a contingency plan in place, which we communicated to all attendees with their confirmation the month before. Not that they read the mail we send them. Dealing with all these inane questions was frustrating, and I finally just put an extended absence message on my machine instructing participants what to do if they were worried about snow, and let it ring through.

Saturday, I arrived at 6:45, and stayed until 5:00pm. But the conference went off without any major disasters which was a major blessing. There was the small incident of the kid allergic to peanuts eating a (wait for it) peanut M&M in the Culinary Arts session, and the one mother hysterical that she lost her daughter at the end of the day, when she was really just waiting for a tour, but other than these relatively minor things, all was well. My volunteers were amazing and competent, my planning was well worth the effort, and one mother said to me, "I was in the army for 22 years, and this conference ran like clockwork. It was wonderful." I couldn't have been more pleased, and I feel extremely proud of myself for pulling it off and being, for all intents and purposes, done with my major project of the year. Of course, a report needs to be written, and evaluation data types of and analyzed, but I am thankful that tomorrow is a holiday so I can work on these things at the Center without staff leaning over my shoulder for a day.

A couple more items of note, which, I know, will seem completely contradictory.

One, I have been attending Mass since the new year, and am really appreciating it. Today, Father gave a sermon about how he had been on a cruise and was really impressed with the people who consider service to be their calling, not just something they do until something better come along. I love that notion, because I'm starting to really feel that working a grunt job that requires minimal education but that really gets something done is what I want to do with my life. I like being in the trenches. I also asked for a patron saint of the year, and am enjoying that little treat, too -- I got paired with two, out of a (fortunate) miscommunication: St. John of God is the first, who went a little mentally ill and then dedicated his life to serving the poor after his recovery: perfect for my interest in psych, my current interest in abnormal psych, and my career conflict of wanting to just find a do-gooder non-profit job next year. My second was Bl. Francis de Montmorency Lavale, who did a lot of work with the expansion of the Catholic church in Canada in the 1600s, especially in Quebec. Because of impending location changes to Vermont (and a honeymoon in Montreal:), I'm feeling like Francis is looking over my move to the North and my joining a family with a French Canadian history.

Secondly, we had our first meeting for the Vagina Monologues tonight, and it was really fun. I think the group I'm working with is great, and although the performance interrupts the week Andy is visiting (which is nice that he gets to see it, but a bummer that I'll be busy in the evenings over one of the weekends), I'm glad to be involved in something.

Overall, my goal for the semester is to be happy and not feel sorry for myself. I'm going to get out, and not make school work a top priority, because last semester, it ate me up, and frankly, I don't like my program enough to be quite that involved again. Chilling out and focusing on other things has been good for me, and I like my frame of mind of late. So we're going to try to stick with that.

And now, off to read. Seriously. At least for awhile.

Forever

That's how long it's been, and although it may feel as if I have dropped you like a hotcake, oh bloggie-poo, that is not in fact that case. Rather, in the midst of my break from school I took a mental break as well, and that involved dropping all things that could possibly remind me of school, which include writing.

Yet much has happened! Christmas was nice and busy and full of much Christmas bounty, including some new clothes and a giant can of Scotch broth soup, courtesy of Mumsie. And a new watch, which is fantastic, as I am finally rid of the cycle of "I bought a cute new watch that was cheap at Target because I'm frugal but, uh-oh, there it goes breaking so I've really bought five in the last year, thus costing me the same as one good watch."

After the trip home, I went to the snowy wonderland of Vermont to see the Affianced. While there, we did many fun things, such as get my engagement ring fixed (silly setting kept bending but now it is straight and new and shiny and beautiful!), take the "Foccus" survey to make sure we are compatible in churchy ways before getting married (we are, no formal counseling needed), began wedding registries and...most excitingly...we had engagement pictures taken!


Since he and I don't reside in the same state, we don't have a ton of pictures of the two of us, so it is nice to have a big set to choose from. He also got me fantastical present for Christmas, such as:

My favorite movie in the ENTIRE WORLD on DVD...

A new robe, which I am seen here modeling...

And an electric toothbrush with a timer that shuts off after the two minutes of recommended brushing time.

Am I a lucky girl or what?

Just Can't Wait to Get On the Road Again

Tomorrow, I am going home. HOME!

I've been done with school for about a week, and it's been good to take a break. But I've been antsy to get home since then, and Williamsburg does not exactly have a happening social scene...and who am I kidding -- even if it did, I wouldn't be out there enjoying it, so I've been a little bored without schoolwork to do.

Tomorrow, bright and early, Kathryn and I will fly out to Columbus, and read crappy magazines on the plane, and then we will be home! Hooray!

g vs. talent

Gifted education has a historical debate going on in which the nature of intelligence is defined either as g, or general intelligence vs. multiple intelligences, such as Howard Gardner's; he believes that there are 8/9 different intelligences, and that people possess them in different "amounts". The intelligences are linguistic, mathematical/logical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and he's in the process of considering spiritual intelligence for a 9th.

Sometimes in gifted ed, these multiple intelligences are referred to as talents, and there is a focus on talent development. This is a nice, broad view of giftedness, because it let's people be good at one thing and work to develop it rather than being globally gifted.

This semester, when I finally sat and thought about it, has been a good one for self reflection, although I'm not always sure I like what I see. I would tend to place myself on the conservative side of a definition of giftedness, working with the notion of g and calling giftedness equivalent to high IQ. Although I've never been IQ tested, I myself would fall into this category -- generally good at learning, bright across the school-types of intelligence. When I was in high school, I recognized this about myself, and felt better than people who were good at things, but didn't excel at school the way I did. Not in the sense of "I'm awesome and too good to hang out with you," but more in the sense of, "You don't get me." Which, to be fair, I still think might be true. Globally gifted kids do think different than other kids, I believe, and in their own way approach the world in a unique way. They have a particular set of social and emotional needs that may vary from other kids (who, of course, have a set of social and emotional needs, too).

Now I'm here, floundering in a sea of indecision about my future, and realizing that despite my schooling and excellent past academic performance, I am qualified to do nothing. I think about the jobs I could do next year, in the fields I want to work in (excluding education, for the time being), and the one that keeps popping into my head is "secretary." Now, there is nothing wrong with being a secretary -- I have the utmost respect for people who run offices and make things work on a day to day basis. Frankly, I wouldn't even mind doing the job for the short-term -- it's useful and you can see the effects of it. That's important to me. It's just that, unless I were the secretary for an organization I truly cared about, like a nonprofit in which I were a founding member, or (this is for you, Sarah and Mom) a church I felt very connected to, then secretary doesn't seem the greatest use for my years and years of education.

So I'm looking back, and thinking about those people I knew in high school who, although perhaps not as good as performing in school, are happy and have a job and a life. As I teeter over a precipice with no prospects ahead of me career-wise, I envy them. I hate to say I'd trade my global intelligence for a particular talent, but at this point, I wish I had a single passion that I could really dedicate my life to. This is the same reason I could never get a Ph. D. I don't like any one thing enough to dedicate that much time to it, which is a shame, because I know I have the capability to pursue higher education.

I wish I had a thing, an interest, a specific talent I could use to make something of myself, because right now, I feel as if my combination of knowledge and skills is pretty useless.

Merry Tuba Christmas!

Last night, I took Kathryn on a top-secret mission to Richmond to introduce her to the wonderful world of Tuba Christmas. I found the event listed on the national Tuba Christmas website, but had no idea that it was taking place in conjunction with Richmond's Grand Illumination, the event where they turn on all the Christmas lights for the first time downtown for the season.

I did five official Tuba Christmas events while I was growing up with fellow band members. The event held in Columbus is a huge one, or was when I attended several years ago. They used to hold it at the Palace Theater downtown, and would have somewhere in the range of 350-500 tuba and euphonium players. In college, the ND basses from marching band would go around to the dorms and have our own unofficial Tuba Christmas during study days. Some of the rectors hated us, but most were really appreciative, and it was a nice break to the insane exam study-time.

Now, as a tuba player, I know my place. I understand the necessity to write sustained whole notes and the dreaded "oom-pahs" for band arrangements, but there is a certain kind of beauty when that is thrown out the window and Christmas Carols are arranged exclusively for bass-clef instruments. It's like a men's choir, but deeper and broader. And it's beautiful.

The Richmond event was much smaller, but they broke a record last night with 76 players, and I think Kathryn had a good time. It's a fun event, and I'm so proud to be a tuba player and to expose my non-tuba friends to something so unique.

5:00 Drive Home

On the way home from his visit with me for Thanksgiving week, the Affianced got stuck in Washington DC for two night. Mechanical errors and then Thanksgiving over-bookings did not work in his favor. The first night was inconvenient. The second night was really inconvenient, as he really needed to be at home working on projects for school.

When he called me at the end of the day yesterday and told me he was stuck for another night, I felt huge guilt. I knew I should go drive up to DC and be with him, but I also had a big big amount of work to get started on. I wanted to see him, but I also wanted to not get behind. I struggled for awhile, but in the end, I told myself, "You know, Becky, this marriage thing is a choice. It's not always going to be easy or fun (although most of the time it is), but these are the things a supportive significant other does." So I made the choice: I drove to DC last night, about three hours away, arriving around 9:00, just in time to have dinner with Andy, play a round or two of text-twist and watch the end of the Patriot's game with him, and go to sleep. Then, four and a half hours later, I was up again to avoid the early morning Monday-after-Thanksgiving DC traffic and be back in time for my 9:00am class. It wasn't exactly fun, but it was good to see Andy, if only for 8 hours.

As a result, the day has been a bit of a haze, but I have gotten a start on my graduate research project for my Young Adult Lit class, which is a huge relief. I was building it up to be a bigger deal than it actually is, so to sit down and start writing the lit review half of the paper is a major stumbling block to have overcome. And frankly, I think this paper is going to be good.

On a similar note, I finished a draft of my Abnormal Psychology Curriculum unit last night, and I'm so proud of it! It was 123 pages to print off (keeping in mind, of course, that many of those pages were worksheets and the like), but it's comprehensive, and has a lot of good resources, and I think it does a good job showing what I have learned about teaching (or at least planning for) gifted kids. I'm so psyched to teach it in the spring!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and although it's a little strange to not be home this year (and a little sad, too), I'm nonetheless extremely thankful that 1) I have the Affianced here this week to celebrate with me, which is a welcome break from the Long Distance Relationship, even if it is only only temporary, and 2) We have been invited to my supervisor's house today for Thanksgiving dinner, which means we'll have all the fun and traditional thanksgiving stuff AND I get to be the pie contributor, which means I get to bake this morning! YAY!

Also, the parade is on.

Off to peel apples. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!